Ebony Scales

“Maybe we can,” Joy replied. “After all, Billy is coming tomorrow, and he said he might have a few people with him. Maybe he’ll have information as well.”

When Billy pulled up the next day, Joy wasn’t sure if she was happy or sad. While it was great to see her friend again after so long, the circumstances surrounding his arrival were perhaps the worst they could be, and she wasn’t sure if this was a reunion or a farewell. “How are you, Billy?”

“I’ve been better, but I bring good news,” Billy said. He hugged her quickly, before shaking hands with Longwei. “How are you doing, Longwei? I know we haven’t really had a chance to talk much.”

“It’s good to see you,” Longwei replied. “I apologize if this has given you any trouble.”

“That’s a minister’s job, isn’t it?” Billy said with a smile. “Even if we don’t share the same religion, my Lord teaches me to help others all the time.”

Longwei nodded his head in thanks, leading Billy inside. “You said you had good news. I do hope you don’t mean you want to try and convert everyone to Christianity before the Triad attacks.”

Billy laughed at Longwei’s play on words, the joke hitting home. “While the Gospel does mean good news, actually I had some guidance from earlier in the Bible,” Billy said. “Just after Joy called, I got in contact with one of my parishioners, a man whose wealth is actually quite great. He doesn’t let it be known he’s a Christian of course, but he has connections. In any case, he and I talked, and I may have a way to save a lot of your village. It’ll be dangerous, but it can be done.”

“What do you propose?” Joy asked. “Because I don’t think you intend to give us a Ranger battalion.”

Billy shook his head. “While there is a time for war, and a time to stand and fight, there is also a time to retreat tactically. I know of another village, a product of Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward, which was established back in the late 1950’s. The place was supposed to be an agricultural communist paradise, filled with the disenfranchised and other things. It was a total flop, and by the time Mao died, it was abandoned. For the past forty years, the entire village has sat empty.”

“So? What can we do with a site that’s been abandoned for forty years?” Joy asked, perplexed.

Billy pulled out a map of China, a red dot marked northwest of Chengdu. “The thing is, I was actually there two years ago. It’s in Qinghai province, west of the mountains, and the nearest city of any note is over two hundred kilometers away. The buildings are still in good condition actually, built of concrete and steel, most of them still standing. While the windows have been broken by the elements over time, the fields are still relatively free of trees, and the area could be revamped into an actual working village quickly.”

“And how do you propose doing that? After all, this place failed the first time.”

“It failed because the Communist Party filled the village with a bunch of city dwellers from Shanghai and Beijing. Of course they starved, they didn’t have the first clue on how to farm. But the people here have been workers of the land for generations. You’ve probably got farmers here who have forgotten more about farming than a professor of agricultural science. I’m telling you, if you can get your people there, you will be safe from the Triads for as long as you want. But that’s not the best part.”

“You need to get to it, because from what I see you’re asking us to move a village of a thousand people close to three thousand kilometers one way, in only two weeks. You don’t happen to have a favor with your Jesus, do you?” Longwei asked, his face stony.

Billy waved off the insult. “Longwei, I’m trying to help you. I see you already had a similar idea to me, although those two buses aren’t going to make any real difference. To get these people and their things moved, you’re going to need heavy lifting capacity. My parishioner happens to have that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the man I’m talking about is a General in the National Defense Reserve Forces. He’s in charge of a whole district near Shanghai, and controls over five thousand troops, including three transportation battalions, one of which has helicopters.”

Joy shook his head. “Billy, how can we trust a member of the Army? They’d rat us out to the Central government and the Triads before we even left Anhui province.”

“Three reasons. First, never underestimate the ability of a bureaucracy to lose its information, and obscure orders. This man’s done things for me before, usually on the scale of getting black market items or smuggling people out of China. Second, he’s been able to form a core of supporters in his command who are with him. When I mentioned the issue, he actually offered not just transportation, but actual help from some of his troops. Finally, he hates the Triads and the corrupt parts of the central government even more than you do. Triads killed his wife and baby son years ago, just to intimidate him, and he’s worked against them ever since.”

Longwei and Joy looked at each other, then at Billy. Longwei nodded, a smile forming on his lips for the first time since Billy got out of his van. “Let’s talk some more. Maybe an Exodus is what is called for.”

*****

Their hasty plan was simple, and Joy knew it hinged on a lot of things going right. Billy would contact his friend the General, who would forge the orders for one of his transportation and construction battalions to move the village, for “cultural preservation reasons.” The orders would appear as if they came from State Security, and few had the nerve to question an order from the division that made dissidents disappear in the middle of the night.

Before that, Billy would lead an advance party of villagers to the new site, using the two buses Longwei and Joy had purchased with the stolen Triad money. In the end, Yingtai had counted out over a million yuan, and they still had plenty left over even with the buses. Billy was to take the money and arrange the purchasing of supplies to get the village through their first year at the new site, while fields were being planted and new crops grown. “While it pains me, I’ll also see what I can do about getting weapons. I can think of a few names to call.”